The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
So why is he prepared to bring one of its writers into his potential presidential administration?
Trump called into The John Kobylt Show on KFI AM radio station in California last Tuesday ahead of his Saturday rally in Coachella.
During their 50-minute conversation, Kobylt asked the former president
about immigration proposals he was ready to implement on day one.
It’s twisted
reasoning: Trump and his allies lie, and many believe him. Asked about
the lies, Vance points to the concerns of those who put their faith in a
man who deceived them, as if their fears necessarily have merit,
reality be damned.
It’s the precise logic we
saw in the wake of the 2020 election, when Republicans pointed to polls
showing a significant number of Americans believed conspiracy theories
related to the race’s outcome. When Democrats pointed to reality, GOP
officials effectively replied, “But look at all of these people who
believe otherwise!”
Pointing to the beliefs of those who’ve been lied to does not make the beliefs true.
It didn't take Convicted Felon Donald Trump urging
violence on an unidentified female at his Coachella rally for us to know
he and his mini-me JD Vance are all about violence and blaming women.
So, don't tell me I
Haven't been good to you
Don't tell me I
Have never been there for you
Just tell me why
Nothing is good enough
-- "Good Enough," written by Sarah McLachlan, first appears on FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY
Nothing is ever good enough for abusers and, at the end of the day, that's all Donald and JD are.
Abusers
always resist fact checking. "You had it coming" and "You made me do
it," for example, never will hold up to a fact check. Abusers don't
just physically harm people, they also justify their abuse and that
requires lying.
Sunday,
the eye liner addicted Tele-Tubby lost it on ABC's THIS WEEK when
moderator Martha Raddatz called out his lies that cities were being
overtaken by Venezuelan gangs. Days before, he couldn't conceal his
anger and disdain when, for a NEW YORK TIMES podcast, Lulu
Garcia-Navarro refused to let him off and instead made it very clear he
was refusing to answer the question she was asking: Did Donald Trump
lose the 2020 election?
He refused to answer. She asked it five times. And he refused to answer.
Neither man likes the truth. Steve Benen (MSNBC) notes that Donald is having a fit over the film THE APPRENTICE:
It’s
unlikely that Donald Trump has seen “The Apprentice,” a movie that
chronicles his early rise, but he evidently doesn’t care for it. The Hill reported:
Former
President Trump is slamming “The Apprentice,” calling the film about
his early rise in New York “fake and classless.” “It’s a cheap,
defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before
the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political
Movement in the History of our Country,” Trump wrote in an early morning
Truth Social post on Monday.
The 150-word missive,
published shortly before 1 a.m. eastern, covered some predictable
ground, including the Republican expressing hope that the film will
“bomb.”
But
there was one sentence in the online piece that stood out for me: “So
sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully
unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want.”
Does
the film show him raping Ivana? Court documents back that claim --
court documents Ivana's attorneys filed -- so if that's got him upset?
What do they say? "Truth hurts."
And it really does hurt for Donald and JD. The two itch and scratch and whine. Over and over.
Bob
Woodward's WAR comes out Tuesday. Advance publicity and reporting on
the book notes that Donald sent his reach-around-buddy Vladimir Putin a
Covid testing machine. If you're late on that story, Nadine Yousif (BBC NEWS) reported last week, "A
new book by veteran Watergate reporter Bob Woodward says Donald Trump
secretly sent coveted Covid-19 testing machines to Vladimir Putin for
personal use when they were in short supply, a claim angrily dismissed
by the Trump campaign." And, yes, Donald did deny it but the Kremlin confirmed it. Last Friday, three governors joined together to issue the following statement:
Today,
Governors Gretchen Whitmer, Tony Evers, and JB Pritzker issued a joint
statement following new reporting that former President Trump sent
COVID-19 supplies to Russian President Vladimir Putin while rebuffing
American pleas for assistance.
“Four
years ago, during the very worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Governors
of our states, we were engaged in a 24/7 effort to obtain critical
medical supplies for our people. It was a terrifying time, and the
federal government abandoned us to fend for ourselves. No one knew how
deadly the pandemic would turn out to be, and our hospitals were
struggling to treat patients and protect their staff.
“The
federal government, under the leadership of then-President Donald
Trump, had completely abdicated responsibility. They ignored our
requests for help to get testing kits, ventilators, and N-95 masks. As
we grappled with worldwide shortages, the former President flat out
refused to deploy the Defense Production Act to manufacture these
critical supplies here at home, putting our people at the mercy of price
gouging foreign suppliers.
“Putting
pride and partisanship aside, individually and as a group, we
repeatedly requested that President Trump step up and come to our
constituents’ aid in the way only the federal government could. We were
repeatedly rebuffed, mocked, and told there were no supplies to be had.
In desperation, we turned to private companies, using money from our
state treasuries to purchase what our people needed.
“Now
we are reading reports that during this unprecedented and historic
public health crisis, while Americans were dying and desperate for life
saving supplies, former President Trump was personally sending testing
kits to Russian President Vladimir Putin. For that, we demand answers.
President Trump’s cozy relationship with Putin has been well documented,
and this recent report demonstrates how, yet again, Trump is putting a
foreign dictator before Americans, threatening our national security in
the process.
“Putin’s wish is Trump’s command.
“Former
President Trump betrayed us. Americans suffered during the
pandemic. 1.2 million Americans died, many because they did not have
access to adequate supplies at a critical time. Donald Trump must
explain why he put his personal friendship with Putin, a ruthless
dictator and war criminal, over the American people.”
He
did betray the American people. And Putin realized that. Putin told
him not to make it public. Trump wasn't smart enough to do it on the
down-low until Putin explained that people would be outraged over this
action. So Trump agreed to be silent about it. But he also agreed to
do it because the American people were not his priority -- the health of
Vladimir Putin was.
Typical abuser behavior, by the way. Worrying what outsiders think of him and not what the people he's abusing think of him.
When
an abuser is 'fact checked' (confronted), they respond with rage. And
don't we see that over and over when it comes to Donald and JD?
The
coverage of Bob Woodward's book? Asked about it, JD erupted. The
author of a laughable tome that slams the people he grew up with was
asked about Donald sending COVID tests to Vlad and Miss Sassy
immediately went into attack mode. Showing off the most outrageous male
bitchy since the death of Paul Lynde, the tubby little cross dresser
raged, "I honestly didn't know that Bob Woodward was still alive until
you just asked me that question. And that's -- what little I know about
Bob Woodward is that he is -- I'm going to use -- I'm going to use a
word here. He is a hack. The guy is a hack."
That's an answer?
That's an abuser raging.
And,
for the record, Bob Woodward is not a hack. He's written over 20 best
sellers. He and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal.
More
to the point, JD was doing 'journalism' in Iraq, remember? While
others carried guns and patrolled and fought, baby Vance hunkered over
the keyboard and wrote an article or two. That's all he could manage.
The brave little toaster -- er, warrior. And he wants to call out Bob
Woodward as a hack?
It's laughable. And we should all laugh in JD's face because Miss Sassy can't handle that anymore than Donald can.
Back to Steve Benen:
In
recent days, of course, the former president hasn’t just lashed out at
those responsible for “The Apprentice” movie. He’s also launched a
bizarre campaign against CBS and “60 Minutes,” accusing the outlet and
the news program of a “scandal” that does not exist.
And
did I mention that Trump said in reference to The New York Times: "Wait
until you see what I’m going to do with them"? Because that happened last week, too.
It's
a war on journalism which is a war on the people. And, please note,
self-billed 'defenders' of free speech -- Glory Hole Glenn Greenwald,
Jonathan Swirley Turley and Matt I Am One Sick F**k Taibbi -- don't say
one word. Because they've never really defended free speech. They've
only defended right-wingers' hateful attacks.
Well
that's not true. Matt Taibbi has also defended lying. He did that
when confronted with the damage and threats the Donald's lying keeps
prompting. He said to oppose that lying was to be anti-free speech. He
also likes to pretend he's studied the law -- he hasn't -- and to jump
on those who bring up that you can't "yell fire in a crowded theater."
Long
before Matt Taibbi returned to the US and to dragging his knuckles
here, we had explained that 'law.' It's a standard with regards to free
speech. During WWI, there were people opposed to the draft who were
telling others to resist the draft. We happen to agree with that
sentiment, by the way. It stems from SCHENCK V UNITED STATES, heard by
the Supreme Court in 1919. The unanimous ruling, written by Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes, was later (1969) slivered down to limiting speech
if it was thought it might incite a riot or a similar action.
And, for the record, that is what Donald and JD are doing.
Donald's
been doing it over and over since January 6th when he incited the DC
riot -- planned to incite and did. The two grifters are doing it with
regards to FEMA. Christopher Cann and Josh Meyer (USA TODAY) report:
The
Federal Emergency Management Agency temporarily halted some aid
operations over the weekend in parts of western North Carolina impacted by Hurricane Helene because of threats targeting government workers, local officials said.
The
threats caused FEMA employees to temporarily stop accepting in-person
applications for federal assistance in some of North Carolina's mountain
communities, according to a statement posted Sunday on social media by
the Ashe County Emergency Management Department, which said FEMA employees would not be staffed in the towns of Lansing or Riverview.
"It
is our understanding that all FEMA reps in NC were stood down due to
threats occurring in some counties (not Ashe) but we have not received
any official correspondence on this issue from FEMA," the post said.
Later Sunday, the Ashe County Emergency Management Department said FEMA
would begin accepting in-person applications for assistance on Monday.
Ashe County Sheriff B. Phil Howell said in
a statement FEMA had "paused their process" because of "threats made
against them." He urged residents to "stay calm and steady," adding,
"Help folks and please don't stir the pot."
In
Rutherford County, about 90 miles south of Ashe County, federal
emergency response personnel paused operations Saturday and moved to a
different area because of reported threats from a" so-called "armed
militia," The Washington Post reported, citing an email sent to multiple federal agencies.
This
is what grifters Donald and JD have spawned and, no, that doesn't pass
for free speech. They're endangering lives -- the lives of FEMA workers
and the lives of people in need of assistance.
For weeks, misinformation about the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Hurricane Helene response has spread far and wide on social media platforms — with more than a helpful nudge from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the relaxed moderation policies of Musk’s platform, X.
[. . .]
It’s
now the second time in a month that a Trump-fueled conspiracy theory
has preceded apparent threats made in the relevant area — with the last
one being Trump’s false claims about Haitian migrants stealing and
eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Each time, local Republican officials
have sought to combat the conspiracy theories and warned of the harm
they could do.
Both
instances reinforce the potential danger of Trump’s conspiratorial bent
and willingness to deploy such misinformation and political tactics
even in tense and tragic situations. Trump unleashed a torrent of similar misinformation early in the coronavirus pandemic and after the 2020 election as he sought to overturn the results — the latter of which culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Most
prominent among the Helene conspiracy theories has been that FEMA has
blocked materials and seized property from affected areas. Rutherford
County is a focal point of such theories, with users falsely claiming
that the government aimed to seize lithium deposits in Chimney Rock in Rutherford County.
This
is the destruction that JD and Donald bring on because they're
controlling, manipulative and vicious and cruel. Women will be most
likely to recognize what they're doing because those are text book moves
carried about by domestic abusers. And women know that nothing Vance
and Trump do is good enough because their behavior is abusive -- always
abusive.
As
we did in 2021 and 2023, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the
community. This go round, we're talking to Trina about her "Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen" and this was a very popular review. People loved it.
Trina:
I was surprised. I didn't know about the title -- what to title the post -- but went with the title
of the book. And it's become my most popular post of the last five
years. I have no idea where all the readers came from. Thank you to
those who read it. It really is a great book and I give it out to
people all the time -- both as planned gifts and as go-ahead-take-it if
someone's looking at it in my kitchen and really likes it. I'm forever
buying copies of this book on AMAZON and I really wish that Kevin Mills
and his mother Nancy Mills would do an update or another one. They
wrote a great book that made cooking very simple and that seems like it
should be the easiest thing in the world to do but it's actually
something that requires real skill.
It came out in 2006?
Trina:
Was it that long ago? A blink of the eye. But that means that two
years from now is the 20th anniversary so they could do an update.
That same year, they published another book.
Trina: I did not know that.
It's entitled HELP! MY APARTMENT HAS A DINING ROOM COOKBOOK.
Trina: Is it available on KINDLE?
It is. It's $6.99 on KINDLE. It's higher in paperback and softcover.
Trina: Well then covering this book was a gift to me because I'm going to get that book in my KINDLE CLOUD tonight.
You've noted a lot of recipes over the years from HELP! MY APARTMENT HAS A KITCHEN. What's your favorite?
Trina: This one -- I'm sending it to you right now in an e-mail.
Mexican Corn Chowder 1 medium onion 2 medium celery stalks 2 tablespoons corn oil 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1 tablespoon flour 1 15-ounce can creamed corn 1/2 4-ounce can diced green chilies, (drained 2 cups milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 teaspoon black pepper 1 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese Handful tortilla chips, whole or broken
Peel and finely chop the onion. Wash the celery stalks, trim and discard the ends and cut the stalks into 1/4-inch slices. Heat
the oil in a medium-size pot over medium heat. Add the onion and
celery and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the
vegetables begin to soften. Add the cumin and flour
and stir carefully until both are fully absorbed into the onion/celery
mixture. Add the corn, chilies, milk, salt and black pepper and stir
thoroughly. Cook, uncovered, over medium-low heat,
stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the cheese and cook
for another 1 to 2 minutes, or until the cheese melts and the soup is
hot but not boiling. Ladle into bowls, sprinkle on a few tortilla
chips, if you like, to provide crunch, and serve.
Mexican
Chowder? That's a good one. You've made it for us and we've made it
on the road when we were speaking. Why is it your favorite?
Trina:
Because, first of all, it tastes so good. Second of all, it's easy to
make. Even on the road. Milk's about the only ingredient that's going
to go bad. And most people have milk on hand. The other ingredients
are pretty much staples. So it's a tasty meal that's quick and easy.
If you
missed it, candy-ass old man Norman Solomon is back at it again. He's
rooting for Jill Stein. It'll be interesting to watch IPA lose
funding. Interesting and fitting.
Remember
when Norman attacked Lt. Ehren Watada.
I won't be nice like C.I. No,
I'll name the garbage involved in that attack. It would be IN THESE
TIMES' Sarah Lazare.
For
those who've forgotten, Ehren was ordered to go to Iraq. He had to
refuse. He would be commanding people under him. Responsible for
them. And the Iraq War was an illegal war so he would be giving them
orders that were illegal. Ehren took a brave stand.
At one point, bimbo Sarah -- presenting as a journalist -- interviews Ehren.
And then the military court hearing his Article 32 demands she testifies.
Now
grasp that Ehren's fighting for his life. And Sarah apparently didn't
understand that a journalist doesn't reveal her sources.
She and Norman Solomon played crybaby and insisted Ehren needed to save Sarah. He needed to testify to what she didn't want to.
Wah! Wah! Wah!
That's not journalism.
Bimbo Sarah, was she putting out like a candy machine for Norman?
Who knows?
But
they thought they could screw over Ehren -- and this while Sarah was a
part of Courage To Resist (Sarah, "bimbo" is what that group's members
called you -- take it up with them) -- and they tried to.
Norman
is garbage and will always be garbage. The left needs to grasp that.
Sean Penn didn't and it ended up destroying his second marriage.
Poor Norman, with the passage of each year, he looks more and more like Sophia on GOLDEN GIRLS.
Oh, and if you need another reason to loathe Norman, he wrote this week,"Personally, as a resident of solid-blue California, I have no intention of voting for Harris."
In 2008, he was a pledged delegate for Barack Obama -- a detail he 'forgot' to disclose in his radio appearances. Let's all remember that he's not voting for Kamala. Let's remember that and make damn sure he's never a pledged delegate to the DNC ever again.
They are not "colleagues" anymore than Martha is a colleague of Sheryl Lee Ralph or Ramón
RodrÃguez. Sheryl and Ramon are talented actors. Meghan McCain is a
fat cry baby who was on a talk show and cried a lot even then. But she
was never Martha's colleague. Martha has been a journalist at ABC for
over three decades and has done serious journalism and done it around
the world -- including Iraq.
No,
they aren't "ABC colleague[s]." Isaac Schorr needs someone to hook him
up with reality on a blind date and see how that goes over.
Remember back in the day when THE VANGUARD couldn't stop
slobbering over Briahna Joy Gray and her alleged intellect? It took Ava
and C.I. to tell you that the emperor had no clothes on -- a reality
that Bri-Bri only makes ever more clear every day. Her feel glory hole whore
Glynneth Greenwald felt the need to reTweet this non-wisdom from
Bri-Bri:
So
not the point, but it's kinda funny that Democrats go out of their way
to call Biden's wife "Dr. Jill" bc feminism, but not Dr. Jill Stein, who
is a Harvard trained medical doctor who also taught internal medicine
at Harvard med school.
It's
not funny because it's not accurate. There were no feminists insisting
Jill Biden be called "Dr Jill" and Ava and C.I. have never called her
"Dr Jill." But it's the sort of whiny bitch comment the jealous child
makes when they feel like their brother or sister gets to stay up an
hour later.
Someone put Bri-Bri and Glynneth to bed -- but first make sure that they're wearing adult diapers. Both of them are really full of s**t.
26) "shannen doherty" -- Rebecca notes the passing of the TV actress.
27) "Bob Newhart" -- Marcia notes the passing of the TV sitcom star.
28) "Richard Simmons" -- Ruth notes the passing of the fitness guru.
29) "Obituaries -- thoughts on Sheila Jackson Lee and others"
-- Elaine notes the passing of Sheila Jackson Lee -- exposed as a crook
in Greg Palast's THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY -- and why we cover
the deaths we cover.
30) ''Gena Rowlands" -- Stan notes the passing of a legendary actress.
Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).
